 Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash Do you want to know the truth about pain? Then read on, my friend.
Simply put it is just a signal perceived by the brain that something is wrong. The brain senses the pain signal and tells you that something is off balance, out of the neutral, out of the order. Next the mind starts producing rather unpleasant thoughts accompanied by rather unpleasant emotions. The usual response to pain in the body goes like this. The muscles tense up, the breath becomes shallow, shoulders ride up to the ears, the ribcage lowers down to the pelvis, the hips and calves tense up. Sound familiar? Feeling all of this nonsense happening in your body brings on more unpleasant emotions and thoughts. You tense up more, clench your jaw, tighten your fists and the buttocks. Now you are creating compression on your joints and organs. The brain screams louder and you get caught up in the cycle of negative signals going between the body and the brain. Now imagine if you were going on vacation tomorrow. You are boarding the plane and arriving at a beach paradise. Palm trees, sunshine, the waves crashing, the breeze in your hair… Or maybe you head up to the mountains. Snowy peaks, sunshine, snow covered trees, the quiet… For a moment the mind gets taken away by the beauty of nature and you get a flood of pleasant emotions, thoughts of happiness and relaxation. The body responds by relaxing the shoulders and the hips, now you want to take a deep breath, and slowly a smile appears on your face. And what happens to the pain? You forgot about it! For a split second, you forgot about it! Yes you did! Or maybe it was longer than a second or maybe it just went away? On its own? How could this happen? Well, my friends this is the beauty of mind body connection. You take your mind off of something and it no longer exists in the awareness. Out of sight, out of mind. I have two little kids, you know what is the best way to get them to quiet down after a scraped knee? Switch their attention to something else. All of a sudden the tears dry, the smile is back and they are chasing after Josie (the dog) again. The knee is still scraped though, the problem is still there… but it gets better after about a day or two. It heals on its own because of our wonderful built in healing potential. You are wired to be resilient and to get better. Now I know, some of you had knee pain or back pain for years and it is not going away on its own. However, every day when I ask my patients what took them so long to get help, they respond with “oh it would just come and go, get better and then get worse.” Yes! It gets better when you are happier and it gets worse when times are hard. This is the mind body connection at work. Unfortunately it doesn’t go away completely, right? That’s because the muscles have become habitually shortened, so they are creating compression on the joints and joints hurt or deteriorate with time. When you are in pain, you start moving differently. Your body does a magnificent job compensating for lack of mobility. The problematic area becomes extra sensitive because of lack of movement and old swelling. The area of the brain that senses the signal from the original injury becomes bigger. This is called the sensitization. Now add an emotional component to this mess and you got yourself a big problem. Luckily, there is a way out of this. There are many different bodywork techniques that can be done to release the tight muscles. Here at Healing In Motion we do a variety of different techniques. It may be massage, dry needling, work with nervous system (Neurovascular Integration), etc. We place a lot of emphasis on work done by hand, because honestly, you need it. Humans need to be touched. The studies on babies show that babies who are not touched don’t gain as much weight. Touch is healing, it’s love, it’s comforting and it feels awesome! Next there is the integration piece. This is when we teach you to move. All the tension which was binding your muscles is going to come back if we just do the manual work. The wires of the brain to muscles need to be reconnected. We do this through really cool Pilates and Somatics exercises. The goal is to get you to experience the joy of simple movement. The joy of breathing, the joy of walking, the joy of feeling alive in your body. When the tension is released, and you are moving correctly you feel like a kid again – FREE! You can do a quick jog instead of walking because it’s fun, or you can choose to jump up and down in place because you are excited. My kids do it all the time. When and why did we lose this ability to be joyful? Yes, it can be done! And you got absolutely nothing to lose just by learning more about it. Do you want to explore this further? Click HERE to talk on the phone. Or maybe you want to take it a step further and talk in person, click HERE to register for a Sample Session. Anyhow, life is too short to spend it grumpy and in pain. So let’s talk if you are ready to make a change. Now go out and enjoy that Colorado sunshine. We are so lucky to have 60 degree day today! Talk soon, Elena
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 Photo by Will Truettner on Unsplash “My back always gets worse when I drive.” – I hear this daily. Why is that?
The answer is - sitting is the worst thing for you. When we sit in the car, your spine curves into a “C” shape. In fact sitting produces more load on your vertebrae and discs than standing. When you have back pain sitting only makes it worse. There is a muscle deep in your hip, called the piriformis. I call it the pain in the butt muscle. When my patients tell me that they have pain right in the middle of the cheek, it usually means that that the piriformis is not happy. Well, you see the sciatic nerve runs underneath that pain in the butt muscle, which can cause symptoms down the leg. In the effort to avoid pain, I see my patients shift to the left or to the right. This causes further compression on the spine and brings more pain. If that wasn’t bad enough, the position of your leg on the gas increases tension on your sciatic nerve. Nerves are supposed to glide between the tissues. Sometimes, the nerve gets trapped between tight muscles which will also give you that tingling sensation. Whenever you feel burning, numbness or tingling, think of it as your nerve is talking to you and signaling that something is off. Irritated sciatic nerve will scream at you every time you wind it up with your foot on the gas or the clutch. Luckily, there are certain adjustments you can do to your car seat to make your back feel better. The best thing is to move the back of the seat so it is vertical. If your height and car allows for it, try to raise your car seat so the hips are higher than the knees. You can also try to roll up something small like a hand towel and put it right behind your pelvis. This will take some of the pressure off your lower back. Unfortunately it is not always possible. Secondly, become aware if you are not sitting evenly on both cheeks. Are you shifted to one side? In that case grab something small (gloves, hat, scarf, t-shirt…) and wedge it under the hip towards which you are leaning. This will keep your pelvis leveled and lower one sided stress on your discs and facet joints. These tips combined with some manual therapy enabled my father in law to drive across country during his back flare up. If you have tried these adjustments and are still having pain, you may have something serious on your hand. My advice to you is to treat it as soon as possible. If it doesn’t go away with these simple positioning tips, you may be irritating your discs and your sciatic nerve. It will take less time, money and effort when you treat it right away. We continue to offer you a FREE SAMPLE SESSION so we can find out what’s wrong and prevent it from getting worse. There is NO financial commitment required from you. You don’t need doctor referral or an authorization from your insurance company. And it is only 20 minutes. At the end of the session you will know what is causing your pain and have specific recommendations on how you can improve your symptoms. About 95% of spinal dysfunction can be successfully taken care of with physical therapy. But the sooner we get to you, the easier it is to treat. Unfortunately people keep hoping that their pain will go away. They come up with excuses that they don’t have time, money or don’t want to look for a therapist. In the meantime the pain gets worse and they slowly give up more and more in order to avoid pain. Don’t give up what you love. Don’t give up a 4 hour drive to the mountains. Get your back treated. After all, pain is just a signal from your body that something is wrong. Avoidance of pain doesn’t make it better it just causes you to give up more of your life. Your health, your mobility and independence are your most precious attributes. They are worth to be made a priority. A lot of time we are so caught up in work, family and taking care of others that there is nothing left for ourselves. Are you really taking good care of them or just surviving? Are you really helping them or are resentful because you haven’t taken care of yourself? Change it, make this step towards better health. Your family and friends will thank you because you will be happier, brighter and be able to take better care of them. When you are ready to take a step forward simply reply to this e-mail or call us at (303)669-0941. If you can’t find time for an appointment call us and we will arrange a phone consultation. I look forward to speaking with you soon. To you vibrant health! Elena  Photo by Israel Gil on Unsplash “You know, for the longest time I thought that these problems with my back are just a normal. The older I get, the more I feel it. I had no idea I could do something about it.” I hear this statement daily from my patients. All too often traditional health care fails in treatment of neck and back pain. Time and time again many physicians are writing off stiffness and ache to aging and telling patients to rest and take medicine.
Unfortunately, most people don’t know that what may first appear as stiffness and discomfort can quickly progress to something more serious. Back stiffness if left untreated will progress to mild discomfort, then to pain, then to numbness and tingling, further to burning and possibly result in muscle weakness. At first, rest and medication will mask the symptoms. Later, you may need something stronger like an injection and then if left untreated you may require surgery. What most conventional doctors fail to tell you is that there is a different route you can take. Start taking control over your symptoms by educating yourself. Internet is full of good and bad advice, so how do you know what is wrong and what is right? Make sure you are getting your information from a credible source. Here at Healing In Motion Physical Therapy we specialize in ending back pain and helping you return to the lifestyle you desire. We loaded up our website with downloads and blogs to help you make a good decision on what to do next. Don’t settle for the idea that “it’s just aging.” What may seem like an easy excuse you can give yourself to stop going to the gym, giving up golf, not picking up your grandkids, etc. will lead you to a darker place of pain, weakness and loss of mobility and independence. You see, as we age, we adopt certain posture and movement patterns. You can picture your parents and grandparents. Forward shoulders, forward head, knees bent, leaning on a cane or a walker. They always complained about their neck and back hurting. The great news is that you don’t need to end up like your beloved family members. You can change your future and thrive into your 70s, 80s and possibly 90s. I work with people of all ages and what I noticed, is that the people in their 80s and 90s who are vibrant, healthy and happy are the ones who are active and refuse to sit still. They are busy in the community, babysit grand kids and take care of their sick friends. You may have noticed how stress, sit down job, sitting in traffic causes you to stiffen up in the hips and shoulders. When the hips are tight and you try to stand up, your tight hip flexors are creating a pull on your back. Also, when the shoulders are tight and your midback is stiff, you will increase the pulling forces on the lower back and neck. Now you feel stiffness and compression. If immobility has caused your symptoms, it makes perfect sense to counteract it with movement. But why does your doctor tell you to rest and take pills? Unfortunately some doctors don’t believe in physical therapy. And they have a good reason. Back pain is very complicated and can be coming from a variety of different factors. It is difficult to treat and most PTs are limited by 30 minute appointments and are burnt out by seeing 20 - 30 patients a day. They mean well, I’ve been there myself, but it is simply impossible to give quality care on something complex when you are mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. At Healing in Motion Physical Therapy we believe in quality of our care. We offer 1 hour appointments and don’t see more than 6 patients a day because we want to feel rested and creative so that we can deliver a good outcome for you. Back pain is the symptom of your lifestyle. Your habits and behaviors need to be changed in order to treat the root cause. Otherwise, anything you do just covers it up. For you to be completely free of back pain, you have to stand differently, sit differently, be more active, drink water and adopt an active lifestyle. It is that simple, yet it is very difficult. This change takes skill, time and patience. Manual therapy and core exercises are not enough. The great news is that this can be done and we change people’s lives everyday here at Healing in Motion Physical Therapy. We refuse to settle for the excuse that “this is just your age”. We continue to invite you to take advantage of our Free Sample Session. Do you know how easy it is to be pain free? Better yet, do you know that you don’t need a referral from your doctor or a pre-authorization from your insurance? A lot of times people wait and procrastinate because they don’t know what to do. Start here, start with a Sample Session and find out what you can do to age gracefully, be more active and healthy. There is no financial commitment required from you. The session is absolutely FREE to you. If nothing else, use it to find out what’s wrong and what your options are. Don’t wait any longer. One thing I can promise you is that nothing is going to change unless you take that first step. Here is to your vibrant health, Elena  Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash Today I want to tell you a story of one of my patients, Jennifer, an account executive. I chose her story because I think a lot of you are going to find it interesting since some of you may have similar symptoms.
Jennifer is in her late fifties. She has been at her job for close to 20 years. She sits most of the day at work but tries to make an effort of doing something active couple times a week. You see, she has been suffering from back pain for years, but recently she noticed that her leg started giving out on her. For months now she has been feeling like her leg was falling asleep every time she sat down. In fact, she had to constantly shift back and forth in her seat to get comfortable. She kept ignoring it and attributed her aches and pains to getting older. That’s what everyone tells you anyway, right? She mentioned her symptoms to her doctor and he told her to take Advil and get some rest. Well, the nagging back pain was not going away and progressively got worse. She started feeling burning sensation down her right leg. She became really concerned when she almost tumbled down the steps because her right leg gave out. Luckily her friend was a patient of mine and asked me if there was anything that I could do for her. Absolutely I can, was my answer. Jennifer came in for a Free Sample Session and told me her story. She was relieved to find out that I hear a similar story several times a day. I know exactly what it was and have a proven track record of patients who got their lives and independence back. Let me explain what happened to her and may be some of you too. Spine is like a pearl necklace, every vertebrae is supposed to move independently of each other. In between the vertebrae are discs. Spinal nerves branch out from the spinal cord which is protected by the vertebrae. Think of discs as jelly donuts and absorbs shock when you are walking. If the spinal column is not in perfect alignment, that jelly can squeeze out and push on the nerve. This is what is called DISK HERNIATION and sometime can come with the nasty burning, numbness and tingling down your leg. When the pressure on the nerve has been placed for a long time it may cause weakness in your leg. That’s why Jennifer felt like her leg was about to give out. Disc problems can be very nasty, but not the end of the world. I want you to know that this doesn’t mean that you need surgery. In fact most disc herniations CAN be treated with PHYSICAL THERAPY. Jennifer became a patient of mine and you will be relieved to find out that she is completely symptom free and has returned to all her favorite activities and even started skiing again. It took us several sessions to get her out of pain. However, Jennifer wanted to feel 100% and treat to root cause which was her posture and core weakness. She has completed a course of Pilates and manual therapy and is feeling better than ever. And you know the best part? She has found the long term solution and will not have to suffer from back pain or leg weakness ever again. And I have seen it time and time again. This is what I want for all of you. That’s why we offer a FREE SAMPLE SESSION so you can learn what is wrong and what you are up against. More importantly, find out about your options. |
We help people who refuse to slow down
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